I want to commend, and cry over, what WP wrote: "What I am seeing in needy areas are things/conditions I thought only existed in previous distant centuries. The patient populations have been well described by Charles Dickens and depicted graphically by Giordano in his opera set during the French revolution…a stream of ragged peasants limping across the stage, right here in the United States, in 2009." I can vouch for it here in Vermont…right next to Dartmouth's great Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH…where - at BEST - most Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Vermont clients CANNOT find a primary care physician (PCP) taking new patients… and where - at WORST - several women I know are choosing to die from their breast cancer because they cannot afford medical care and will not burden their kids or society. One woman has an MA in Counseling, and the other a PhD in Human Nutrition. These are not uneducated people… But they are most definitely poverty-stricken…and were poor before the 2008 global economic collapse.

From "Project HealthDesign," a medical / healthcare blog...

This post is from "sWell." Interesting medical blog

Norms of Reciprocity. Or, "I feel bad when someone doesn't follow me back. (Not)."

Evidence-Based Research: a series of tutorials for medical and healthcare professionals and students wanting to improve their skills in conducting research geared toward clinical use, this 12-month session is offered by the Journal Club. In addition to the tutorials, you will gain full-text access to all journals in the library at the University of Bridgeport. Only $225 for all tutorials, and for a full year of full-text access to all of the library's digital resources!

Evidence-Based Research: a series of tutorials for medical and healthcare professionals and students wanting to improve their skills in conducting research geared toward clinical use, this 12-month session is offered by the University of Bridgeport's Journal Club. In addition to the tutorials, you will gain full-text access to all journals in the UB library. Only $225 for all tutorials and one year of full-text access to all of the library's digital resources!

*In West Chester, Community Volunteers in Medicine treated 332 patients in February, up 26% from February 2008. The cost of care was up 21%. At the same time, the clinic was about $100,000 behind in fundraising for its $1.8 million annual budget. *Ohio's 40 free clinics treated 56,000 uninsured patients in 2008, up from 43,000 in 2007. Marjorie Frazier, executive director of the Ohio Association of Free Clinics, expects the number to increase in 2009. In January, one clinic in Cleveland closed because it lacked funding. Ohio, one of the few states that helps pay for free clinics' operations, is cutting funding. Its two-year allocation for 2008 and 2009 was $2.1 million; for 2010 and 2011, proposed funding is $1.5 million. *California's 800 community health centers saw increases of up to 20% in uninsured patients in the past six months. The state, facing a $42 billion budget shortfall, is eliminating payments for some services for poor adults, including dental care. As a result, the centers will lay off 1,000 dentists and other staff, leaving as many as 400,000 people without dental care, says Chris Patterson, spokesman for the California Primary Care Association.

Workers, 20-30% of whom are uninsured, and an even larger percentage of whom are underinsured, continue to pay the bill for others to get coverage; their payroll taxes help support Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the disabled, for children of low-income parents, and those living in poverty.

If the uninsured were a political lobbying group, they'd have more members than AARP. The National Mall couldn't hold them if they decided to march on Washington. But going without health insurance is still seen as a personal issue...The grass-roots group Health Care for America Now plans to bring as many as 15,000 people to Washington this year to lobby Congress for guaranteed coverage.

© 2005 Elsevier (Am J Cardiol 2005;96:810-814). After 3 months, the extent of stress-induced ischemia decreased in the pomegranate group but increased in the control group. This benefit was observed without changes in cardiac medications, blood sugar, hemoglobin A1c, weight, or blood pressure in either group. In conclusion, daily consumption of pomegranate juice may improve stress-induced myocardial ischemia in patients who have CHD. (Small sample; further study warranted with quantitative coronary arteriography + intravascular ultrasound.)

My "argument" against this guy's lazy, reactionary blog post is at the very bottom of the page, dated April 12, 2009. I think it's the longest comment he's received so far, too. Just look for a verbose passage. That's my rant against his reactionary, unsupported claims against NDs.